ST. GEORGE — Two suspects are in jail following a weeks-long investigation into a report that more than $8,000 was allegedly taken during a burglary reported at a storage facility in St. George.
Officers responded to a possible theft reported shortly after 9 a.m. April 11 at a storage unit on West Sunset Boulevard.
According to arrest documents filed in support of the arrests, officers arrived and spoke to the complainant, who said she was staging a yard sale out of the storage units several days before. Just before leaving the facility, they had asked a “trusted friend” to take over and continue selling items from both units.
Three days later, the reporting party returned to the storage facility to find several items not sold were missing — property that valued at more than $8,000, the officer noted in the report.
The items included large storage totes filled with porcelain dolls, clothing, camping gear and a Ruger BB gun still in a gun case. Officers noted the reporting party was unable to provide information or documentation proving she owned the items.
The owner also told officers that when she returned to the units, both were locked and she was the only one with keys.
The following week, officers met with the manager of the storage facility to view surveillance footage. They observed a silver Dodge Ram pickup truck pull into the facility shortly after 7 p.m. the day of the garage sale and stop in front of the units in question.
The truck was registered to Landen Kole Levicki, 30, who police say used a key to unlock each of the two units and proceeded to make several trips to move the items from the storage units to his pickup truck.
Additional footage showed a second suspect pulled into the facility driving a gold Buick, and according to the report, officers watched as both suspects continued loading the items into both vehicles or “filling them” with the victim’s property, the officer noted.
After roughly an hour, both vehicles were seen leaving the facility roughly 15 minutes apart.
Investigators compared the images from surveillance footage to a driver’s license photo of Levicki, which was a match. The complainant also positively identified the suspect as Levicki while reviewing the security footage, telling officers she recognized him as an acquaintance she met through mutual friends.
On Wednesday afternoon, officers went to the jail and spoke to the suspect, who was in custody on an unrelated incident. He said on the day of the incident, he was contacted by a friend asking if he would help her move some items – “specifically” the items from the two storage units at the facility on West Sunset Boulevard in St. George, the officer noted.
The suspect said when he agreed to help, he thought the items they were removing belonged to the friend and said he did not know the property wasn’t hers. He confirmed that another man arrived to help load the items but said he did not want to provide the friend’s name.
Officers advised Levicki that any potential charges would be submitted once all parties allegedly involved in the burglary were identified.
The suspect’s statements were called into question after officers learned from an Adult Probation and Parole agent that several messages were found during a search of the suspect’s phone.
In the message thread, the suspect said he “would carry out the theft as long as their stories matched up,” the officer wrote.
Based on the footage, Levicki’s uncooperative actions and the evidence recovered from the suspect’s phone, investigators determined there was enough probable cause to submit two charges — second-degree felony theft and third-degree felony burglary — to the Washington County Attorney’s Office for review.
On Thursday, an investigator reviewing the case found a probable cause statement to support the arrest of a second suspect, Moana Hamilton, who was interviewed by police at her home.
Hamilton told officers the victim owed her money, but she denied taking anything from the storage unit.
When confronted about the text messages sent between herself and Levicki, Hamilton admitted to taking some of the complainant’s property, saying “she only took enough to compensate herself for what the victim owed her,” the officer noted.
Hamilton added that some of the property taken during the incident was still in her garage. She was arrested and booked into jail facing a misdemeanor theft charge and was released from custody that night.
Levicki remains in custody on a hold placed by the Bureau of Prisons and was verified through the Utah Department of Corrections, records that indicated he served time at Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison on drug distribution and aggravated assault charges until his release in January.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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